WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

6 January 1951

... That is the essential difference between our yoga and the old yogic disciplines which dealt only with the inner consciousness. The old beliefs used to say--and some people interpret the Bhagavat Gita in this way--that there is no fire without smoke, no life without ignorance in life. That is the common experience, but it is not our idea, is it?

We know by experience that if we go down into the subconscient, lower than the physical consciousness, into the subconscient and even lower still into the inconscient, we can find in ourselves the origin of atavism, of what comes from our early education and the environment in which we lived. And this gives a kind of special characteristic to the individual, to his outer nature, and it is generally believed that we are born like that and we will stay like that. But by going down into the subconscient, into the inconscient, one can trace the origin [new p. 295]of this formation [old p. 317]and undo what has been done, change the movements and reactions of the ordinary nature by a conscious and deliberate action and thus really transform one's character. This is not a common achievement, but it has been done. So one may assert not only that it can be done, but that it has been done. It is the first step towards the integral transformation, but after that, there remains the transformation of the cells which I mentioned earlier.

There is an article by Sri Aurobindo in one of the Bulletins which describes the various stages through which the entire physical being can be changed. And this is what so far has never been done.

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 15, p. 316